Painting In NAFA

So school re-opens, and I'm struck anew by how agreeable it is to be back in the sun-lit studio on the 6th floor, dealing with paper and perspective and charcoal sticks and all the talk is about lines and techniques and how to get the shadows to form (because drawing with charcoal is a bit like painting with fog). It's pure luxury to sit in a circle and study a plaster reproduction of some classical statue, and draw companionably, with our teacher's voice in the background urging encouragement on the new students next door. 

CC was late, and came in huffing and puffing, and immediately threw everyone off, first  by dragging the chairs loudly, then unpacking violently so her things kept falling to the floor in a great fuss. Then she proceeded to peer over everyone's shoulders and to check our progress and then, instead of settling down quickly, whipped out her camera to capture the subject teacher had set up. The flashes were disruptive to say the least.

She started whispering to me in loudly about the last class of last semester: "Did teacher notice? I wasn't there, I didn't go". She stuck out her tongue, to act guilty, "So hot go Botanic Garden I cannot paint". I said I didn't know if teacher had noticed, but in truth, everyone noticed CC's absence because had she been there, she would have fallen into a fountain, or rolled down a slope, etc. 

"Anyway, I painted some lotus at home myself, I think teacher won't know right? Right?"

But there were only water lilies in the Botanical Gardens that Sunday. 

My mind drifted back to that hot, still day.

I was sitting by this boy in my class. How shall I describe him? 

He was wearing his usual brown shoes with the toggle closing (it must have been hot, and such ugly shoes!). He wears black wire-framed glasses, and had pimples. His teeth are so big that his mouth is never closed entirely. His nose is short and snub and his hair is thick and black and in no style whatsoever. He draws precisely, with great concentration (that day he painted the Victorian pergola across the lake), measuring and plotting carefully. He hardly talks, but smiles to himself alot, as if at some comedy playing inside his head.

We took our lunch break together that day at the food court. He ate a very large roti john, and picked out all the onions. I didn't say much. Then we walked slowly back to the others, looking at the swans and stopping to admire the ferns on the ancient trees.

He wasn't there this semester.